Movie reviews, big and small, for anything that has passed before my eyes.

Thursday, 5 June 2014

TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From The Keyboard (2013)

Most movie fans nowadays have heard of The Pirate Bay. It's the world's most well-known torrent site. It's the scourge of Hollywood. The people who run the site are devious criminals, committing actions that help to fund terrorism, the drug trade, and human trafficking. Well, that's what some opponents of The Pirate Bay would have you believe.

The reality is that Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde, and Fredrik Neij (the three main men responsible for running The Pirate Bay) are just young men battling against the steely grip of copyright laws that have gotten out of control over the years. In fact, they're almost completely innocent, justifying their actions by claiming that all they do is provide space for people to share things over the internet. Well, that's what they would have you believe.

The truth, as it so often does, lies somewhere in the middle, and this documentary tries to present some differing opinions, to allow viewers to make their own opinion on whether or not the three lads, filmed here during an important trial, are heroes or villains.

I guess you can't discuss a documentary about The Pirate Bay without stating how you feel about illegal downloading and torrents. Personally, and it may be obvious from my constant movie viewings and reviews, I always like to support the film-makers when I can. BUT I do appreciate that downloading is still an option for those people still having their viewing material decided for them by archaic, and often overly sensitive, censors. I also don't think that sharing something, as long as it is being recommended to others, is the worst crime in the world. We've all made someone a mixtape at one time or another, right? Plus, it's often the case that the most torrented titles on The Pirate Bay also do great when it comes to sales numbers.

That ends up not being as important, however, as the personalities of Svartholm, Sunde and Neij. It becomes clear quite early on that the men have started to believe their own hype. They are crusaders against ruthless, greedy corporations, and to jail them would be unthinkable. The geek shall inherit the earth. Unfortunately, cracks start to show while the threesome spend too much of their time being clever and smug. It's only Sunde who seems to take things seriously, most of the time. Svartholm is having too much fun getting one over on "the man", and Neij just ends up revealing himself to be a very unpleasant individual, especially under the influence of alcohol.

Of course, it shouldn't matter what their personalities are like when thinking about the accusations against them, and when considering their guilt or innocence, but it's unavoidable. It's good that the documentary doesn't try to show everyone in stark black and white morality, throwing up moments that will make viewers on either side of the torrenting debate question their opinion.

All in all, this is an interesting piece of work that I recommend people watch. Whether you pay for it or not . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . that's another matter entirely.